Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Undergrads Feasting the Library.

So it's exams-before-Thanksgiving time here at Second String State. I have some of my office hours in the library because students actually come to them, and the library has windows, unlike my office. Winter is coming, and the starchy things are becoming irrationally delicious to me.

The graphic to the right shows how I feel about undergraduate luncheon feasts in the library.

I figure that looming over them until I intimidate them into giving me their food is a good way to get fired.

Pulling the fire alarm and feasting after they evacuate is probably not a good idea, either. Besides, they might take the food with them.

I'm of the opinion that our bodies have their reasons for wanting particular foods at particular seasons, and we should yield to such impulses (in moderation). Then again, I have a waistline that suggests this may not be the best dietary advice (and/or that I need to work more on the "in moderation" part, and/or on getting much more exercise, which is probably the/a missing ingredient in making this theory work).

Librarians seem to have forgotten that it can damage the books. But then, the books seem the lowest priority in the modern library. In the new, $100 million library we have on my campus, the books a relegated to compact storage in the basement.

On the 2nd floor of our new library is a Starbuck's. No kidding, a coffee shop, right smack dab in the middle of everything! And within about 10 feet of stacks of current periodicals! With nothing whatsoever to stop anyone from spilling a coffee on anything they like! And it's been this way for over two years now! So, it appears not to be a bad idea that someone is now trying to fix.

We have a cafe in our library, too, but they are pretty strict about taking the coffee out into the wild. The worst consumable you will find in the stacks is probably bottled water; they are more tolerant of snack foods in the study room (where there are no books).

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What Is This?

College Misery is a dysfunctional group blog where professors get the chance to release some of the frustration that builds up while tending to student snowflakes, helicopter parents, money mad Deans, envious colleagues, and churlish chairpeople.

Our parent site, Rate Your Students, started in 2005, and we continued that mission beginning in 2010. Ben at Academic Water Torture and Kimmie at The Apoplectic Mizery Maker both ran support blogs during periods when this blog had died.